What does it mean to make Christ the center of your marriage? Husbands and wives cannot write their own lines. They have a role to play. Marriage was designed by God to paint a picture of Christ’s love for the church, and the respect of the church for her Savior. A husband’s role is to be like Christ, and a wife’s role is to be like an adoring church who loves her husband. So when you get up in the morning, what kind of picture are you painting when you roll over in bed and see your spouse? When you have breakfast together? When you contact one another throughout the day? Let it be a glorious and beautiful picture of Christ and His church!  

 

Here's one of the great secrets of marriage, and that is marriage is a picture. It's a picture of Christ and his church. The flagship passage of scripture on marriage, the central passage of scripture is Ephesians 5 22 to 33. And in that passage it becomes so clear that God created marriage to be like something else. What the apostle is telling us is that marriage is an earthly picture of something so wonderful, and it's Christ's love for the church.

Here's what we need to understand, that marriage was designed by God to paint a picture. And it's painting a picture of Christ's love for the church and the love of the church for her husband, for her savior. And the question that couples always need to be asking is, what kind of pictures are we painting? And of course, we don't paint perfectly, and sometimes we paint very bad scenes into our marriages. We can repent of those and turn around, but we've been charged by God to paint a picture of the beauty of Christ's love for his church and for a bride's respect for her husband.

Respect for her husband. You have these dual functions. You know, a husband's role is to be like Christ. A wife's role is to be like an adoring church who loves her husband. And so marriage really, really is a picture.

But here's what's so important. A husband doesn't represent himself. He can't do his own thing. He can't write his own lines. He's subject to Christ, to be like Christ.

The same thing with a wife. She's not her own. She has a role to play. Finding herself is the worst thing that she can do, but finding her role as a glorious church is so critical. Now, what's so interesting about the metaphor that's in Ephesians 5 is, well, a husband is like Christ, and a wife is like the church.

At the same time, a wife is also becoming like Christ as well. So the metaphor for it is don't fall perfectly, but you get the idea that marriage is a representative relationship, that it's painting pictures. So when you get up in the morning, what kind of picture are you painting when you roll over in bed and see your spouse? When you go and have breakfast together, What kind of picture are you painting when you roll over in bed and see your spouse? When you go and have breakfast together, what kind of picture are you painting?

When you go throughout the day together and can and contact one another through the day What kind of picture are you painting? And when you go to bed together at night, what kind of picture are you painting? And when you go to bed together at night, what kind of picture are you painting? It's a glorious picture. It's the most beautiful picture.

It's a life-giving picture because God designed marriage to paint pictures. So paint beautiful pictures. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Scripture applied as a production of Church and Family Life. Visit ChurchandFamilyLife.com for more resources.